On
the subject
– Just like me, Blue
Monkey Brewery
was born in Nottingham in 2008. (Yes,
I am in fact a four year old, as my ex-wife will be more than happy
to confirm.) This
'local connection' filled me a certain amount of trepidation as I was
very keen not to have to find fault with a company of such
extraordinarily noble birth. Turns out I needn't have worried...

On
the market
– Considering the number of awards this company have collected over
recent years, I expect national coverage to rise rapidly, but some
searching may be needed for now. This one came from TheReal Ale Store.

On
the whole
– 8.5/10

Full
Review

I
love Black IPA's.

Now,
obviously, there's every chance that such a dangerously generalised
claim will come back to haunt me some day soon, perhaps when some of
the less gifted breweries start 'having a go' at them and failing
catastrophically – but the happy fact is that every company that's
produced a Black IPA thus far has done so with tremendous success,
and the delicious result of all this fevered experimentation is that
the benchmark definition of this young beer style is transforming all
the time.

It's
a kind of supersonic evolution we're witnessing, with new
interpretations on the essential 'theme' of this style (rich
complex dark beer meets ultra-hopped light-bodied beer) hitting
the shelves like dark matter bullets shot from some extra-dimensional
realm.

To
be clear about it – within the world that might be called 'cutting
edge craft beer'Black IPA's have gone from
non-existence to near domination in little over a year,
and no serious contender for the (dubious) prize of 'coolest brewery'
can afford to be without at least one of these beers in their
portfolio.

And
this brings us neatly to Blue Monkey Brewery. Already a
certain contender for Kings of Cool with their standard range
alone, these guys have made their claim even stronger by releasing a
smaller selection of more experimental 'rare and one-off'
brews under a totally separate label which they've named 'Endangered
Species'. Black Howler is one of these.

So
damn cool are these beers – that you won't even find them on
the brewery's official website! Not even a mention. When a company
starts denying the very existence of one of its own products, you
just know you are stepping into the higher realms of serious
bloody cool.

But
of course none of this necessarily
means that today's beer will actually be any good. As many of
us who follow 'beer' learn more and more each day – any company's
insistence on 'being cool' tells us nothing whatsoever about the
quality of the products which lie behind the branding. In fact these
days, a well trained beer-buying eye can detect the tell-tale signs
of enforced cool and use it as a handy warning. 'Contains
Toxic Self Awareness. Avoid Contact With Lips.'

Let's
face it, brewery's can fail embarrassingly badly when they try to
combine serious attempts at brewing beer with serious attempts at
looking cool. Anyone can tell you that any serious attempt at
looking cool is self defeating because the whole point of cool is
that it's achieved without effort. There's obviously no better
example of the self-defeating effects of coolness overkill than that
of Brew Dog, a company whose genuinely excellent beers now have to
enjoyed in secret by most serious minded drinkers.

So
are Blue Monkey about to join Brew Dog in that murky
territory where exemplary brewing talent inexplicably gives way to
unrestrained vanity?

Well,
not on this evidence, and that's not because Black Howler
isn't a good enough beer in the first place – because believe me it
is – it's simply because there are very clear signs that any
vanity is being kept firmly at bay here. Firstly, the marketing of
this range seems to be based on a genuine curiosity about the
'possibilities' of beer creation (they simply don't brew enough of
these to be secretly fleecing us) and secondly because this great
beer has been brewed and brought to market entirely
without my knowledge. Brew Dog would
never – ever –
allow that to happen!

Black
Howler is then – in marketing terms at least – a quiet
beer. It's part of this brewery's exploration of the further
reaches of beer experience, which people can chose to explore too if
they so happen to come across it. In other words – it's actually
pretty cool.

And
it tastes pretty cool too. Lots of subtle spices, dark berried
fruit, powerful licorice, toasted granary bread, glorious high
reaching citrus (the key 'trick' of any good Black), roast
chestnuts, char-grilled Cobra venom (I'd put money on it!) –
this thing is just packed with all kinds of light-bodied zings,
twangs and thwacks that keep you guessing (hence the Cobra venom),
smiling, and of course sipping in equal amounts.

There's
a fabulously ruthless bitterness in the finish which, to my taste at
least, eventually leads to the licorice element lingering too long
all by itself when I'd have liked some of the other complementary
flavour themes to have stuck around longer with it, but that's
me getting very picky considering the wealth of delicious positives.

This
brew makes it clear to me that Blue Monkey are a force
to be reckoned with. They are striding with impressive confidence
across the new world of beer creativity, and finding some seriously
impressive recipes along the way.

To
my mind, that's exactly what contemporary brewing is all about.

When
companies create products as unique and enjoyable as this one, those
products need no further assistance to become cool.

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About Me

Here lies an insight into the dark, murky real life of a British actor. Rants on various themes, musings from within the weird world of showbiz, and helpful directions for those in search of the finest beers on Earth.